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5 Healthy Habits That Can Help Decrease Your Cancer Risk

No one wants to get cancer. (Um, hello, biggest "duh" sentence in the history of the world!)

But oncology researcher Kelly Turner, Ph.D., author of Radical Remission: The Nine Key Factors that Can Make a Real Difference, spent a year visiting cancer patients in remission from 10 countries, and she discovered something fascinating: More than 1,000 cancer patients had recovered without the help of conventional medicine (or after conventional medicine hadn't worked). Why, though? Here are just a few of the reasons she found out:

* The cancer survivors increased their fruit and vegetable intake—while also cutting back on meats, wheat, sweets, and dairy (or eliminating those groups of foods altogether). They also drank lots of filtered water and bought organic food whenever they could.

* When it comes to herbs and supplements, there's no "magic bullet," says Turner. Still, the cancer survivors that she interviewed took supplements that may have helped in their digestion and given their immune systems a boost.

* No one (probably!) will feel happy all of the time—but the cancer survivors Turner spoke with reported that they made it a priority to focus on happiness for at least five minutes a day. And, interestingly enough, studies have suggested that those teensy five minutes of happinessmay actually help increase the number of white blood cells in your body.

* The majority of survivors said that the love and support they received from family and friends while they were sick went a long way in helping them heal. Turner says this may be due to oxytocin—the "love hormone" that your brain releases when you interact with loved ones (and pets!).

* Instead of focusing on the reasons that may cause death, Turner's interviewees zeroed in on why they wanted to keep living—the goals they hoped to achieve, the experiences they wanted to log.